Love them the same but treat them differently

by beagooddad on September 5, 2006

If you enjoy this post, make sure you subscribe to Be A Good Dad to receive new posts in your email or feed reader

We had a scary moment on a kid roller coaster at the county fair we went to over the weekend. Geetle and Pookie were going to ride alone. We saw the little bar that is supposed to lower onto your legs and hold you in and decided that based on the other rides they have done, that would be enough.

Before the ride started, we realized that the bar only lowered half way and you were supposed to hold the bar while riding.

Perfectly fine for Geetle. We told her to hold the bar, and we knew she would not let go.

Not perfectly fine for Pookie. With just a few seconds before the ride would start, there was no way that we could try to explain to Pookie that he needed to hold the bar and sit still or he might fall out. Even with a lot of time, there is no way that we could really ever know if he understood.

Beagoodmom rushed up and rode the ride with him. Geetle did great holding the bar and Pookie had fun feeling the wind and bumps of the roller coaster.

It was a very startling reminder that even though they were born 16 minutes apart, they both excel at very different things and we have to treat them differently from time to time. We can not expect Pookie to understand things like holding a bar for safety. But, we can ask him to tell us what numbers are on the attendance board at the fair. We can expect Geetle to understand concepts like holding the bar, but she thought the previous days attendance for the fair was HBCCB. I have not done the conversion, but I do not think that she knows how to read numbers in hexidecimal yet.

Once I get some time to go through them all, I will post some pictures of the fair sometime later this week.